Notre Dame Football: 3 reasons the Irish will beat Clemson for ACC title
3. Clark Lea and the Irish defense
Notre Dame defense has stepped up whenever it has been called upon. And it all starts at the top with the defensive coordinator Clark Lea. When the Irish offense was not clicking early on in the season, who was there to save the day? The Irish defense was there and showed up every single week.
Clemson was missing some key guys on the defensive side of the ball. But the stats still do not lie. For ACC rankings, Notre Dame’s defense is number one in points per game for their opponent, and also getting off the field on third down. Two huge components for winning big games.
The Irish defense against Clemson in round one limited the Tigers to 4-15 on third down conversions. Notre Dame also has given up the least amount of yards to running backs as well.
If you watched the game back in November you would have seen that Notre Dame physically just won the line of the scrimmage against Clemson on both sides of the ball. The Irish were the tougher team back in November.
Dabo Swinney will be the first to tell you Notre Dame was the tougher team, and has said it multiple times that the Irish owned the line of scrimmage. How much tougher? Notre Dame rushed for 208 yards, while Clemson only rushed for 34 yards as team. That is how good the Notre Dame defense is overall.
Clark Lea has shutdown big time players all year long. In Week 7 against Clemson, star running back Travis Etienne was one of them.
Etienne only ran for 28 yards against the Irish defense on 18 carries. He had one long run of 13 yards which makes it even more of an impressive job by the Notre Dame defense. They held one of the top running backs in the country to an average of1.6 yards for the game.
Etienne wasn’t the only running back that Clark Lea has shut down. Just a few weeks ago the Notre Dame defense held the high powered Tar Heels offense duo of Michael Carter, and Javonte Williams to only 87 rushing yards, and a total of 298 yards overall a team.
The Clemson offense will obviously move the ball with their playmakers on the offensive side of the ball with Lawrence under center now. But if you limit Etienne like the Irish did in Week 7 this will go a long way in securing another win against the Tigers.
It should be noted in the Tigers last game against Virginia Tech, Lawrence did have one interception, and also had some other throws that should have been picked off by the Hokies defense. The turnover did not come back to hurt Lawrence and Clemson, but Notre Dame has the firepower to make you pay for mistakes.
Notre Dame was able to turn Clemson over in South Bend. Fully expect Lea and the Irish to throw everything at Lawrence come Saturday afternoon.
News game out on Monday that Clark Lea will be introduced as the next head coach at Vanderbilt after the season is over. Hopefully if you are an Irish fan it will be after three more victories before he heads off to Nashville.